The uneasy relationship between Jill Biden and Kamala Harris just got harder to paper over.  The obviously ghoulish expectation that V.P. Harris will succeed her doddering husband without the benefit of an election and the signs of rebellion from the veep make the relationship between the two women testy at best.  Should death or the 25th Amendment remove her husband from office, "Dr. Jill" loses all the status and perks of the presidency, which she obviously relishes.  Going back to teach remedial English to community college students might lose some of its appeal.  With V.P. Harris hovering in the background waiting to step up, it is understandable for Mrs. Biden to harbor suspicions and resentments.

Excerpts from a new book by Edward-Isaac Dovere, former chief Washington correspondent for Politico and current staff writer for The Atlantic, claim that Jill Biden was so enraged at Kamala Harris during the presidential campaign that she exploded in an epithet-laced rage on a group phone call.

The trigger was the June 2019 presidential debate during which Harris, facing fundraising issues, attacked Biden for having praised segregationist Senate colleagues as able to work together with him, during a fundraiser a couple of days before the debate.  Business Insider:

Right before the debate, Biden garnered controversy for comments he made at a New York City fundraiser fondly remembering the days of "civility" in the Senate when he worked with people he didn't agree with, including two Democratic senators who supported segregation.

"I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me 'boy,' he always called me 'son,'" Biden said. "Well guess what? At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn't agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished."

Harris, who is biracial, confronted Biden at the debate, saying: "I do not believe you are a racist and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground, but it's personal and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country."

Harris then hit Biden over his controversial record on school busing.

"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day," she said. "That little girl was me. So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats."

Biden responded: "It's a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I do not praise racists. That is not true." He also cited his time working as a public defender for the cause of civil rights before becoming a senator.

After the debate ended, then-candidate Biden leaned to his right and said, "Well, that was some f------ b-------," to his fellow 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg, now his secretary of transportation, Dovere wrote, citing people he said were told of the remarks afterward.

From Dovere's book excerpt, published in Politico, we learn that "Dr. Jill" stewed in her own juices for a week over Harris's attack and then lashed out verbally:

The aides could do the political maneuvering after Harris' attack. Jill was and is the guardian of the Biden honor, the Biden id. She couldn't bear to watch a woman who called herself a friend of her son's — although Beau was not her biological child, she'd raised him his entire life as if he were — try to tear her husband down, to score a point at a debate.

"With what he cares about, what he fights for, what he's committed to, you get up there and call him a racist without basis?" she said on a phone call with close supporters a week later, according to multiple people on the call. "Go f--- yourself."

Interestingly, the story is not being denied:

The first lady's press secretary, Michael LaRosa, did not deny that she made the explicit remark.

"Many books will be written on the 2020 campaign, with countless retellings of events — some accurate, some inaccurate," LaRosa told Politico Playbook in a statement. "The First Lady and her team do not plan to comment on any of them."

The two females at the top of the Executive Branch are like scorpions in a bottle.  Their stingers are always at the ready.  What might happen if President Biden shows overt signs of disability?  I suspect V.P. Harris has at the ready the private telephone numbers of every member of the Cabinet, for use in case invoking the 25th becomes a possibility.  And "Dr. Jill" knows it.

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